Love & Other Heresies
by Silk Damask
Summary: A vigilante prowls the night hunting former Death Eaters. A man returns to England in disgrace. A woman will be the given the choice to save the one person she has always despised. Their lives are seemingly divided, yet irreversibly intertwined. Post DH.
1. All Begins With Bliss

Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

**1. All Begins With Bliss  
**

_Friday April 7 2006_

_London_

She spent much of Friday morning with her head laid upon her lover's chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, watching the pitter-patter of rain against their windows, and occasionally skimming over an article of interest in the Daily Prophets he held in his hands. Life was everything she could've hoped for and more. Sometimes, it seemed too good to be true. Sometimes, she was afraid she would wake up one day and none of this would be real. Like a dream, happiness this profound never last.

She closed her eyes and nestled closer to him. The rise and fall of his chest assured her that even if this was just a dream, she was still dreaming. For now, she could be content with that. If dreamers only had mornings to fear, she wanted nothing more than to never wake up.

"Mione," He called her by her pet name, "Are you asleep?"

"No," She murmured softly and peered up at him from beneath her long dark lashes. It was maddening how much she loved Ron.

"You haven't said anything in a while," He smiled down at her, "I thought you were—"

"Asleep," She finished his sentence and smiled back wistfully, "I know."

After a long silence, she shifted and sat up. A yawn escaped her lips. "Anything interesting in the papers?" She asked.

"The usual," He shrugged, "Tax hikes. Ministry budget cuts. Death Eater arrests. Something about Harry."

"Then why are you still reading it?" She whispered into his ear.

The look of utter confusion he shot her made her roll her eyes. "What do you propose we do instead?" He asked.

She arched an eyebrow. His expression did not change. _Oh dear Merlin_, she thought, _he could be so thick sometimes_. She waited with infinite patience for him to arrive at the obvious conclusion.

"Oh..."

Finally, his face lit up. Without another word, she kissed him and flung the papers in his hands across the room. He tasted like spearmint. She ran her fingers down his abdomen and tugged at his boxers.

"I have...work in an...hour..." He gasped in between kisses.

She drew back very unwillingly and gazed at him with skepticism, "Seriously? You're saying no to morning sex?"

He thought about it for a few seconds before flipping her onto her back. "Never. But let's not waste time talking."

She laughed.

Unhappiness was for other people.

* * *

More to come very soon. Read & Review!


	2. The Nightingale's Song

Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

**2. The Nightingale's Song**

_Saturday April 8 2006_

_Parkinson Manor_

He barely heard a word of the service. The air was much too stifling and the stuffy suit he wore did little to ease his discomfort. He glanced around and wished someone would open up one of the windows. A 30-something blonde sitting several seats down was making eyes at him again. Even now, seated in the second row of uncomfortable wooden chairs, he could feel her brazen gaze filtering through the black lace kerchief she wore over her hair. He did his best to ignore her.

The man leading the service, Rupert Burgess, was a tedious speaker. He droned on and on about her supposed virtue and kindness, her compassion and grace. Draco wanted to sneer. What did he know about virtue, kindness, compassion, or grace? Less than eight years ago, this very same man had been preaching for the extermination of Muggleborns and Halfbloods and anyone else he deemed undeserving to live. His hypocrisy was suffocating.

Come to think about it, what did he even know about her? Pansy was hardly virtuous or kind, compassionate or gracious. She had been no damned Hufflepuff. It was her other qualities, her ruthlessness and ambition, her vanity and capriciousness, that came to define her as a person. Draco drowned out his words. Perhaps he alone knew her better than anyone else, but he did not deserve to speak at her funeral.

* * *

_The Gryffindors used to call her Pug-Face Pansy. He had always thought it was a cruel mockery. She wasn't breathtakingly beautiful, but she wasn't as ugly as they had led her to believe either. In spite of the pompous display she would put up, he could tell she had taken their insults to heart. _

_She complained often, when they were alone at night in the Common Room, in her half-joking half-sincere way, face hidden behind a mirror, that her nose was too pudgy, her complexion too pale, her lips too thin, or of some other imperfection of the sort. She had always been so vain. _

_You look fine, Pansy. _

_He would tell her. Anything to shut her up. At the time, he used to wonder why he was always the one subjected to her insecure rants. He had his own problems and was in no mood to humour hers._

'_Fine?' Just 'fine'? _

_She would arch an eyebrow ever so slightly and peer at him from behind her mirror with accusing blue eyes as if 'fine' was the worst insult anyone could pay her rather than a simple assurance._

_Beautiful. Like a Queen. _

_He would amend his answer impatiently. When she wasn't looking, he would roll his eyes and secretly wish that she would have this conversation with someone else instead. Someone who actually cared._

_Do you really mean it, Draco? _

_She would ask him with such hope in her voice. It was heartbreaking, really. That was the thing about Pansy, always seeking permission, acceptance, assurance—something—and always looking for them in the wrong places._

_Yes. _

_What else was he supposed to say? It was an automatic response. He would tell her without even looking up. She wouldn't notice, of course. She never did. _

_Thank you, Draco._

_The tenderness in her voice would always surprise him, because the Pansy he knew, the one who would corner Hufflepuffs in the stairwell and badmouth Professors behind their backs, would never leave herself so vulnerable. He would close his book and look up. And there it would be across her red lips the most brilliant smile he had ever seen lighting up her entire face, untainted by malice or the false sweetness she so often employed when others were around._

_Against his better judgment, he would find himself smiling back, rather foolishly. And these moments, as rare and fleeting as they were, would vanish so utterly and completely into the thin air that it was as if they never existed in the first place. He would return to his book and she would turn back to her mirror. They would go back to being, as if they always had been, simply Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson, him the unfeeling bastard and her the miserable bitch. _

_

* * *

_

There was a great deal of people in this room whom he hadn't seen in almost eight years. Amongst those of his former housemates that had shown up, he recognized Theodore Nott and his wife, Daphne Greengrass, Millicent Bulstrode, Terrence Higgs, and Adrian Pucey. They had greeted him with an almost precarious politeness, but when the service began, they sat far from him. He didn't blame them. He was, after all, still in disgrace.

No doubt she would've been pleased with the turnout of her funeral. She had always been popular with the bottom-feeding crowd. They flocked to her like moths to a flame. And why not? She was born into old money and a good family. Even in today's times, these things still had bearing on certain social circles. And of course, when she chose to exercise her charm, hardly anyone could deny her requests. It had been one of her greatest strengths, one which she regrettably threw away for uninviting snobbishness.

Maybe she should've chosen better friends and maybe she had, and maybe like him, they had abandoned her and had forced her to turn to lesser individuals—fops, gossips, rich widows and idiot sons, the pathetic remnant of a once glorious past. He looked around and wondered if they were the people she had surrounded herself with during her final days. He sensed in them much indifference, much insincerity, much feigned grief, something of solemnity, and not a little of the sadness she so deserved.

* * *

_By the end of their Seventh Year, her smiles had disappeared altogether. She grew colder, more withdrawn, unable to reconcile with her father's imprisonment in Azkaban or her family's diminished status. Whereas witnessing firsthand the brutality of Voldemort's regime forever disillusioned him from the 'justness' of their cause, Pansy remained as fanatic and unsympathetic as ever towards those whom she considered by blood and nature her inferiors. Their rift drove them apart. When they finally parted ways, he was as much of a stranger to her as she was to him._

_After graduation, he left England, eager to escape the infamy of his name. He travelled across the world, never staying in any one place for more than a few months. In spite of all that had happened between them, he told himself he would come back and see her in a year or two, for old times' sake. But a year or two soon became three, and three turned into five, and five gave way to seven. Slowly, he pushed her to the back of his mind. He had all the time in the world to make amends and she would always be there._

* * *

If he knew then what he knew now, that she would not survive to see her twenty-sixth birthday, he would've surely visited her sooner. It disturbed him to think that their relationship had degenerated to such a point that a mere visit was dependent on one party's prior knowledge of the other party's untimely death. He stared hollowly at the open casket.

The service was now over and all around him, everyone was getting up. He stood up also and was about to leave when he felt a firm hand on his shoulder. Draco turned around and raised an eyebrow at the sombre-looking man standing behind him. In all of the years he had known Blaise Zabini, his fellow Slytherin had never dared to lay a hand on his shoulders. It was an unforgivable gesture. Draco wondered what had changed now. As if sensing his discomfort, Blaise hastily withdrew his hand. There was an uneasy silence in the air as the two men stared at each other.

"You came back at a bad time, Draco." Blaise spoke up, at last.

"That goes without saying, doesn't it?" He replied wryly, glancing at the flower-laden casket at the front.

"In more ways than one," Blaise shook his head ominously, "She's the third one this year."

Draco turned to look at him sharply, "And what are the Aurors doing about it?"

Blaise let out a bitter laugh, prompting several contemptuous glares in their direction.

"Nothing, of course." He sneered, "Most of the Wizarding World thinks she deserved what she got. You know how it's like these days, with the Ministry stacked with Weasley prats and Potter's cronies. Frankly, her behaviour after the War didn't help either. She was a vocal Voldemort sympathizer to the very end, did you know that?"

Draco shook his head but wasn't very surprised to hear of it. Blaise continued, a hint of lamentable sadness crept into his voice, "She should've known there would be repercussions. She was never very pragmatic. Not like us."

"No."

They both glanced towards the casket where a pale young woman with perfectly rouged lips lay in the midst of a bed of silk and brocade. A ray of sunlight escaped through the heavy draperies and fell upon her face, basking her features in a golden glow. Draco could've sworn she was smiling.

"She was always very beautiful, wasn't she?" Blaise murmured.

How she would've loved to hear him say that. _Even you think she's good-looking, don't you, Blaise, and we all know how hard you are to please._ Pansy's voice echoed in his head.

He thought over the question and slowly nodded. This time he meant it with all his heart.

"Yes."

* * *

Read & Review!


	3. The Daily Prophet: April 10, 2006

Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

**3. The Daily Prophet: April 10, 2006  
**

**HE'S BACK**

**Former Death Eater Returns to Attend Slain Lover's Funeral**

By Donald van der Bray

_Draco Malfoy, former Death Eater and heir to the Malfoy fortune, has returned to England after an eight-year hiatus spent abroad. He was seen on Saturday afternoon attending the funeral of Pansy Priscilla Parkinson, the latest victim of a string of alleged serial killings targeting known and suspected Death Eaters living in the Greater London Area._

_Mr. Malfoy, 25, is the son of former Death Eater, Lucius Malfoy, and pureblood sympathizer, Narcissa Malfoy née Black. The elder Mr. Malfoy was convicted of six counts of attempted murder in 1996 after a failed attack on the Department of Mysteries. He later escaped from Azkaban along with eleven other Death Eaters, including Roldophus and Rabastan Lestrange, respectively the husband and brother-in-law of notorious mass-killer, Bellatrix Lestrange, who is the sister of Mrs. Malfoy. The Malfoy family defected at the end of the Second Wizarding War. They were pardoned of their crimes in 1998 by the then incoming Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt, a gesture that caused widespread controversy and outrage across Britain. The elder Mr. Malfoy and his wife currently reside in Portals Vells Bay, Spain._

_According to sources, the young Mr. Malfoy was romantically involved with Miss Parkinson during their school days at Hogwarts. Their relationship ended some time prior to Mr. Malfoy's travels abroad. It is not known the cause of the split, though friends of Mr. Malfoy and Miss Parkinsons cite they remained on friendly terms. During the funeral, an anonymous attendee described Mr. Malfoy as looking forlorn and grief-stricken. "He brought white carnations," She said. When pressed to elaborate, the woman explained, "I thought it was quite odd, because everyone else brought pansies."_

_Miss Parkinson's death has now been classified as a homicide by the Auror Office. Miss Parkinson was found strangled in her home on March 29. She is the third victim this year of the serial killer dubbed by media outlets as The Muggle. Previous victims include Vincent Crabbe, 26, and Alecto Carrow, 42. Both Mr. Crabbe and Ms. Carrow were known Death Eaters who evaded capture after the Second Wizarding War._

_Miss Parkinson was an outspoken supporter of the pureblood crusade. She had been suspected in the past of Death Eater activities but no charges were ever laid. Her father, the late Peter Parkinson, was convicted on two counts of Muggle slayings in 1999. He died in incarceration two years ago. The Parkinson fortune is estimated at 24 million Galleons. Miss Parkinson's lawyer, Aleister Fynch, of Fynch, Glendon & Corsair, is expected to announce her Last Will and Testament on Tuesday morning._

_In a statement released by the Auror Office on Friday afternoon, Head Investigator Cormac McLaggen condemns the killing as an unjustified act of violence and expresses his deepest sympathy to the relatives and friends of Miss Parkinson. It is expected that Mr. Malfoy will be brought in for questioning in the coming weeks, though his connection to the killings, if any, remains unclear._

_

* * *

_

Chapter Four will be up very soon! Stay tuned.

And thank you, Dianna, for your kind words.

As always, enjoy and R&R!


End file.
